"Mendoza plays these songs. She makes them sing. Her technique is impeccable, but her playing is astonishingly expressive. She doesn't just bend blue notes; she wads them up into a ball and throws them up against a wall... Mendoza knows what she does well, which is tell stories with her guitar. Check that. Mendoza knows what she does better than almost anyone else on the planet, which is tell stories with her guitar." -Aiding and Abetting

SOLO DISCOGRAPHYAVA MENDOZA- SHADOW STORIES (CD, 2010, Resipiscent)"What obscure, overlooked master playing in some slashing, raw-yet-virtuosic manner is this?" -Nels Cline.In this, her solo debut, guitarist Ava Mendoza starts from old melodies already tattooed on your brain, then applies sufficient heat to peel that paint leaving you re-pinked and wondering what's next.
What's next are original compositions, heavy, gorgeous, oddly reverby, layers that build, blister and flake away to alight indelibly on your mind. Just as Mendoza reprises those traditional tunes, you discover she's walked you far into a lost countryside. How, or whether, to get back will be your own business.Available HERE

AVA MENDOZA/SIR RICHARD BISHOP- IVORY TOWER (LP, 2016, Unrock)“The thunderous fuzzy freeform tracks on Ava Mendoza’s side of Ivory Tower make a well paired contrast with Bishop, utilising the guitar as an outright noise producer before nimbly segueing into a fiery version of Mendoza’s own vocal blues tune “Shadowtrapping,” and eventually into the swinging fuzz jazz instrumental 'Kiss of Fire'.” -The WireAvailable HERE in the US, or HERE in Europe.